In 1937, Joe Luecke called up a girl from high school to ask her if she wanted to come watch him play basketball. She said she couldn’t because her mother was making her go to church.

“My older sister said, ‘Hey, I know a girl who was next to my locker, Violet Anderson, and she’s pretty nice. Why don’t you give her a call?’” Joe said. “I asked, ‘How do you know her?’ and she said, ‘Everybody knows Violet Anderson.’”

Violet agreed to the date and went down to Kankakee to see Joe play. Seventy-five years later, the two are still together.

As the couple entered their 70th wedding anniversary party on Feb. 7 at the Carmelite Carefree Village in Darien, they were undoubtedly the talk of the room. At age 93, their happiness shone through, and they mirrored the roles of a President and First Lady in how they dressed and carried themselves.

Growing up in the Chicagoland area, Joe and Violet dated for five years before getting married because during the Great Depression, no one could afford to.

Joe worked 72 hours a week for 21 cents an hour. Six months later, Montgomery Ward opened, hiring him at 50 cents an hour.

“I thought, man, I’m going to own the country,” he said.

In 1942, the two got married, and because money was so tight, they had to basically go on a double date with another couple for their honeymoon so they could save money on gas.

Heading south, Joe and Violet realized they couldn’t get a hotel because an Elks National Convention in town had all the rooms booked, but Joe’s sister slipped the keys to her place in his pocket without him knowing.

“She already knew it was going to be all booked down there but didn’t tell him,” said their son, Brad Luecke of Downers Grove. “She made him go from hotel to hotel to hotel to try and find a spot to go to, and you know, it’s your honeymoon. ... Eventually they stayed at his sister’s place.”

The honeymoon ended with them in Hot Springs, Ark.

Years into their marriage, Joe opened his own pattern shop and Violet did all the bookkeeping for it, but the two retired early and moved to Florida in 1972.

Over the course of 70 years of marriage, there are millions of little things forgotten, but it’s the priceless moments that stand out for the couple, like their children being born, countless traveling (including 14 trips to Australia) and racking up an enormous bar tab.

While at a country club in Florida, Joe hit a hole-in-one. To celebrate, normally the club picks up the bar tab with its insurance.

“We ran around in the housing development and knocked on the doors of all our friends to come down and have a drink,” Violet said. “Everyone showed up and had a drink, but the insurance didn’t cover it. We had to pay the whole bill.”

To some, Valentine’s Day, this Tuesday, has lost its luster over the years. The fact that half of all marriages end in divorce isn’t helping the holiday’s cause, either.

But for the 50-plus people watching Joe and Violet Luecke toast to their milestone — telling stories of their love the way giddy schoolkids would — the romantic feelings surrounding the week might be different.

Everyone wants to know the secret to a lasting marriage. For Joe, it’s a basic formula.

“The first thing you have to do is find a girl,” he said. “Second, she has to be pretty. Third she has to be smart and fourth, she has to be very agreeable."

Continued here:
Darien couple celebrates longevity, romance after 75 years